Mixtapes

Audio / Video files of songs mentioned in this story are collected here.

He began softly, "Heaven, I'm in heaven," which irritated Coomy even more and he stopped humming.

How often does a mosque in Ayodhya turn people into savages in Bombay? Once in a blue moon.

"True said Nariman,"The odds are in our favour." He resisted the urge to hum "Blue Moon."

At one time, the Elvis doll could also sing a verse of "Wooden Heart," but,
as Jal liked explaining to visitors, something had gone wrong with the mechanism on the very day in August that the King had died.

Then one of the men began singing "Choli Kay Peechhay Kya Hai." He sang it with an exaggerated leer, and the crude question in the song,
directed at Roxana, made her stiffen, fearful about Yezad's reaction.

Glad to be in his own bed, Nariman nodded off while the Schubert quintet played in the drawing-room,
till voices trying to keep low disturbed him a short time later.

At seven AM, the doorbell invaded Coomy's sleep, and she woke resentfully from a lovely dream. She was dancing in the ballroom of the Taj Hotel, a band was playing old-time favourites: "Fly Me to the Moon," "Tea for Two" in Latin Rhythm, "Green, Green Grass of Home."

Then the announcer on the radio said it was time for one of yesteryear's hits, and Englebert Humperdinck came on.
Yezad and the boys sang along with the refrain,
"Just three little words: I love you!"

"Some time ago I read a book bout music therapy. It prescribed specific compositions for high or low blood pressure, stomach cramps. I don't remember exactly, but Bach was the one prescribed most often, especially certain fugues from the "Well-Tempered Clavier."

"I used to have a 78 rpm of Heifetz performing it," he continued. "Sarasate's Zapateado, isn't it?"

Daisy began to play Mendelssohn's On Wings of Song and they fell silent.

... his sense of wonder returned despite his very sensible view of the subject (his two beautiful sons).

And, lost in his thoughts, he began whistling softly "Sunrise, Sunset."

Moisture trickled from the corner of his eyes. She dried it with a napkin while Daisy finished the allemande from a Bach Partita and waited
with the bow poised over the strings like a question mark - more music?

Their song, his and Lucy's, ever since they had seen The Great Waltz.

"Excuse me," said Jal. "what was that piece?"
"Beethoven's violin concerto," She replied.
"Number?"
"There is only one."
"And the part you were practising ... which movement?"
"Second - the larghetto."

(words and music for Chhaiye Hamay Zarthosti .... to be put in time capsule)

Looking up, Jehangir wondered which song it would turn into, but his father kept whistling cheerful phrases, like a bird.
Then he began a tune, the Laurel and Hardy theme, and Murad waddled podgily, with his stomach thrust out.

Roxana whispered to Daisy not to mind him, so she tuned the violin and began a soothing rendition of Schubert's Serenade.

Then Daisy Aunty began the Brahms "Lullaby," which Grandpa loved so much. Daddy whispered that he used to sing this tune for Murad and me when we were babies, he said it was also a Bing Crosby song that his father would sing to him.  He hummed the words under his breath,

"'Lullaby and good night ...'"